Saturday, April 14, 2012

To succeed you don't have to know everything

Those who
succeed in life are not those who know everything. The top executives do not know every detail of their company.. A CEO should assess
the risk and reward of a scenario
and make a go/no-go decision. And for this, sometimes, too much information is
a negative. A CEO should be the hallmark
of everything that is good about the company and he should be an inspiration to
everyone. Ability to delegate and decision making capability are other
attributes of a successful CEO. These attributes are not based on knowing every
detail or the depth of general knowledge.

Those who
succeed in life will be specialized in a particular field and they will spend
14-16 hours of every day on their work. If one dabbles in everything he would
become a jack of all trades and a good for nothing. The CEO of
any corporation will have a gist of the whole. She/he will absorb the necessary
abstract of every department and give direction. If they muddle
into the micro details they will reach nowhere and they will not be able to
carry out the chief attributes mentioned above.

If one is
researching he should go into the minutest detail of everything connected. Similarly, a painter or a sculptor will
have to master the craft in every detail. But the CEO of a corporation
is to set to give general guidelines and he needs to know his company, the pulse of the current market, the innovative
techniques and the direction in which the world moves.

General knowledge is not going to help anyone in any profession.
An encyclopedia can answer any general knowledge question. There is no need
for anyone to store the data in the memory. There are quiz programs which give
a million or more to the final winner. But the winner is effectively worth just the cost of
a related encyclopedia.

It is
important that we identify our innate talent from very early days and acquire the
necessary knowledge and skill so that our market value goes up. There are
people who feel tense as they cannot cope up with the information revolution. If
you try to absorb or make yourself up to date with everything that goes on in
the world there will soon be an information overload in your brain. Concentrate
on your line or subject and learn what will be useful to you in your
profession. Becoming an encyclopedia is worth almost nothing.